Updates And One Story That Summarizes All Of WorldCon For Me

(NOTE: Based on time elapsed since the posting of this entry, the BS-o-meter calculates this is 8.442% likely to be something that Ferrett now regrets.)

So I’m writing a post on “Surviving Cons: A Guide For Socially Anxious Writers,” but it overflowed the time I’d allotted for blogging today. (As it turns out, being an introvert, my social energy levels are closely tied to my writing levels. When I’m out of people-juice, I’m out of writer-juice as well.) So that’ll come… later.
Unfortunately, thanks to a flood of spam, I’ve had to disable anonymous commenting on the LJ. Which irritates me. I mean, not only does LJ now segregate anonymous posts with suspicious links… not only are these entries from a long time ago, and not really heavily-Googled anywhere… but LJ is a dying fucking social media. Yet here I am, dealing with 500 emails over the weekend from some idiot spammer who can’t figure out that all of his messages are being screened. One suspects a rather dim spammer who bought some CAPTCHA-cracking tool from 2007, and is just now taking it for a spin in his attempt to become the king of MySpace spam. Fucker.
So sorry, no anonymity. You can have Facebook, or Twitter, if you need, but getting that many emails over the weekend just cinched it.
In the meanwhile, have one story that summarizes all of WorldCon for me:
So I was hanging out with a female writer of some note, who was a very cute drunk – you know, the kind who apologizes every ten minutes because she’s not normally like this, all giggly, swaying a little. And we ran into my friend Tasha, who is a reviewer of some note.
“I ran into a guy who was name-dropping you quite heavily in conversation,” Tasha told me.
“Really?” I said, shocked. “Someone’s trying to trade on his knowledge of me? He clearly didn’t know who he was talking to, since he’d have done far better to name-drop you.”
“No, no,” Tasha declined. “Not at this con. I’m just a reviewer – you’re an actual content creator.”
“I disagree. Your writings put art in context, and bring it to a larger crowd. I think you’re far better for art than I am, actually….”
Drunken female writer looked on, amused, just as we walked into the Barfleet party – which, as Barfleets are wont to do, was hot, overcrowded, and full of music. Within seconds, we’d lost Tasha. And the drunken writer said, in as forlorn a voice as anyone could muster, “Where’s Tasha?”
I didn’t know, but drunken writer was insistent. “I wanted to talk to Taaasha,” she repeated, sounding heartbroken. “Where’s Tasha?”
After several plaintive queries, I realized where she was, in that state of inebriation where you can hold on to only one thought so it becomes Very Important – in fact, since you have only the one thought, it rolls around in your head, gaining steam until it takes on massive weight, the most important thing in the world.
So I went to fetch Tasha, and after wandering through a sweaty dance floor and texting and searching through crowds, I got a text confirming that Tasha had moved on and was not coming back.
“Where’s Tasha?” said drunken writer, lamenting.
I knelt down. “Tasha’s gone off to dance,” I told her, with all the seriousness of a man telling his child that her puppy is in the hospital. “She’s not coming back.”
Drunken writer slumped, looking crestfallen. “…but I wanted to talk to her about the false dichotomy between art and criticism!”
That’s WorldCon, folks. Drunken revelry and Very Serious Discussions, inexorably intertwined.